LyX — The Complete Guide: Writing Theses and Technical Reports With Equations, Free
LyX lets you write LaTeX-quality documents in a graphical interface with no commands to memorise: theses, papers and technical reports with equations.
Guides and Articles
Inkscape for Engineers — The Complete Guide: Free Technical Illustrations, Diagrams and DXF
Inkscape is a free vector editor: technical figures and diagrams for reports, polishing exported plots, editing SVG, PDF and DXF, and files for laser and CNC.
Zotero — The Complete Guide: Free Reference Management for Theses and Research
Zotero is a free reference manager: save papers and standards from the browser, annotate PDFs and insert citations automatically in Word, LibreOffice and LaTeX.
KNIME — The Complete Guide: Engineering Data Processing and Analysis Without Code, Free
KNIME lets you build data workflows from graphical nodes, with no code: merging files, cleaning, statistics, machine learning and reports. Free on the desktop.
R and RStudio for Engineers — The Complete Guide: Free Statistics and Quality Control
R is the leading language for statistics and RStudio makes it easy. For engineers: quality control, design of experiments, reliability and automated reports.
Julia — The Complete Guide: A Fast Scientific Computing Language for Engineers, Free
Julia is a free language for engineering computing: syntax as simple as MATLAB or Python, speed close to C. When it is worth switching, and its key libraries.
Spyder — The Complete Guide: A MATLAB-Style Python Environment for Engineers, Free
Spyder is a free Python IDE for scientific work: editor, variable explorer, console and plots in one window. The easiest way to move from MATLAB to Python.
JupyterLab — The Complete Guide: Transparent Engineering Calculation Notebooks for Free
JupyterLab combines code, results, plots and notes in one document — ideal for transparent engineering calculations, test data and re-runnable reports.
Arduino IDE — The Complete Guide: Free Prototyping, Sensors and Control for Engineers
Arduino IDE is the free environment for Arduino and ESP32 boards: code, upload, serial monitor and plotter — the basis for measurement and control prototypes.
LibreOffice for Engineers — The Complete Guide: Calc, Solver and Technical Reports for Free
LibreOffice is a completely free office suite: Calc for engineering sheets with Solver, Writer for reports with equations, and good Word and Excel support.
Python for Engineers — The Complete Guide: Free Calculations, Plots and Automation
Python is the core language of engineering computation: NumPy, SciPy, pandas, matplotlib and Jupyter, plus automating Excel and tools. What to learn first.
WebODM — The Complete Guide: Free Drone Mapping and Photogrammetry
WebODM turns drone photos into orthophotos, elevation models, point clouds and 3D models — open source and self-hosted. Flying, processing, accuracy.